Supporting Local Farms

Text By Avice Meehan
Featured Image by Ashley Skatoff

It’s a cold, rainy March afternoon just before Antonio Guindon’s 60th birthday and he’s having fun: Irish music coming from a speaker, a stove burning bright, and maple sap boiling in a small evaporator. 

“Every spring, sap fever hits me, and the beauty of my life right now is that when someone offers me sap, I can boil,” said Guindon, working from a petite sugarhouse that belongs to his neighbor Matt Bannerman. The sap itself came from friends who own Northwest Corner Farm on Grantville Road in Winchester. More on that later.

Guindon, also a skilled carpenter, lives at Lost Ruby Farm on Winchester Road. For nearly 15 years he produced a sought-after selection of goat cheeses with Adair Mali, his wife, cheese-making partner and goat-cheese booster, at regional farm markets from Collinsville to Westport.

No more. Guindon and Mali have passed the torch to a young farmer, Kristie Laverdiere of Canaan. She took over the cheese-making business late last year and, with help from the two Norfolk farmers, will begin producing the same cheese this spring under her own label, Lavender Hills Farm.

It was a match several years in the making. The seeds were planted in 2020 when Laverdiere, then working as a large animal veterinary technician, visited Lost Ruby Farm for wellness checks on the herd of goats. She fell in love with Guindon’s milking stand, constructed from the remnants of a child’s jungle gym.

“My milking stand is kind of complicated. She got it within minutes,” said Guindon, with whom Laverdiere shares a can-do approach to farming.

For her part, Laverdiere recalls taking more than a dozen photos of the milking stand and surrounding parlor. When she heard that Guindon and Mali were planning to get out of the cheese-making business, she calmed her nerves and called out of the blue about taking it over. 

So now that milking stand, the parts numbered before they were taken apart, has been reassembled and lives inside a modified shipping container at the 20-acre farm that Laverdiere is starting with her husband, Wesley Gomez. Within the next few weeks, she will take delivery of a second shipping container that’s kitted out with a cheese room and cave. Then, after passing all the necessary inspections and with guidance from Guindon and Mali, she will start making cheese. 

The full transition will take three years, and Laverdiere plans to take it slow. This year she has bred seven goats and plans to focus on the range of fresh, flavored chevre cheese for which Lost Ruby became known, as well as the gouda. She’ll take on more milk-intensive cheeses, such as Haystack and Ziggurat, in the future. Thanks to Mali’s hard work, Laverdiere has secured a spot at the high-volume farmers market in Westport and will also have a presence in Great Barrington, as well as other venues as volume permits.

Laverdiere, who grew up on a dairy and beef farm in Granby, always thought she would work with cows. But like Guidon and Mali, she came to believe that goats would provide a more sustainable option, since she is also an educator at Wamogo Regional High School in Litchfield, where she manages farm animals and equipment, teaching students “common sense.”

“Goats are light on the ground. All they want to do is eat weeds, but they still do need care,” said Guindon. He and Mali still have 11 goats at Lost Ruby Farm, and all are promised to friends looking for “lawn mowers” and brush cleaners.

Guindon and Mali plan to keep a few chickens – at least for a while – and lean into their farm motto of being “slow, small and inefficient.” However, they are slowing down in stages. 

As it happens, they are providing shelter to onion seedlings for Northwest Corner Farm, which is owned by their friends Holley Atkinson and Stephen Plumlee and is starting its first year of operation. Northwest Corner Farm will also take over Lost Ruby’s role as a purveyor of farm-raised turkeys. It was not part of the original plan, but the turkey chicks are ordered, and the team from Lost Ruby Farm has agreed to help.

“We were customers of their turkey business for a long time,” said Plumlee. “When Adair and Antonio said they were stepping back, they asked us if we would take over. So with their guidance, experience and participation it will be a smooth and gradual transition.”

As for the maple syrup, Guindon’s batch cannot be purchased for any price, but Northwest Corner syrup is for sale at ROOTED Market and Live at Home in Winsted.